To Love An Alcoholic…

To love an alcoholic is to grieve a million deaths.

I was raised by an alcoholic. He didn’t drink while I lived at home… he was a “dry drunk” - a person with extremely unhealthy coping mechanisms (i.e. alcoholic behaviors) who abstains from alcohol. It was only after I moved out of the house that he lost himself in a bottle for the next 2+ decades of his life.

For many years I didn’t think his drinking really had that much effect on me because I didn’t witness it on a daily basis. Yes, it did impact my life in the sense that he was a ticking time bomb & was not a person who could be counted on in any way, but I was an adult, so I didn’t see the need to depend on him anyways.

Growing up, when he was “dry”, my father was never a father-figure, but instead was a manipulative, abusive authoritarian in my life who gaslit &  belittled me to establish his dominance in the household. Again, for many years I didn’t believe this had an impact on me.

It was only after I got sober myself that I realized the impact of his actions.

My father quit drinking shortly after the time that I quit drinking myself. Not because he had the desire to get sober or better his life, but because he got a DWI & the legal system scared the shit out of him. When he called me to tell me about his night in jail he was so filled with shame. I think he expected me to cut him out of my life completely, but that thought never occurred to me…

I said “Dad, you’ve been given another chance. Take it.”

I still didn’t think his drinking had an impact on my life.

It was shortly after his DWI that I saw him not drunk for the first time in 20+ years. We sat at the kitchen table and had a real conversation… it was the first time in my life I had ever had a conversation with my father - a man who was in my home everyday of my childhood & in the town next to me in the majority of my adulthood. I was 38 years old. It was in that moment I felt what it must be like to have a father.

After that conversation there was a mixture of gratitude for being able to experience what it’s like to have a father at least once in my life, and deep sadness for what I had been robbed of me throughout my lifetime.

That next year I continued to have conversations with my dad. Nothing deep or life-altering, but they were coherent, calm conversations. He still wasn’t a person who had the capacity to guide me with any sage advice, but he was no longer a slurring time bomb.

It was about a year after he quit drinking that he & I had a conversation where he said to me “I can’t guarantee I’ll never drink again. If something bad happens I might have to.”

In that moment I felt a piercing ache to my heart, and a punch to the gut.

I said with a lump in my throat, “Dad, please don’t check out again.” as my eyes filled with tears.

That was the moment I realized my father’s drinking impacted me.

To love an alcoholic is to grieve the life you never had the chance to live…

It’s grieving what you deserved, but didn’t get.
It’s grieving love you craved, but never received.
It’s grieving the potential of a man that never came to be.
It’s grieving the isolation & the burden of secrets you hold.
It’s grieving the powerlessness to change it.
It’s grieving the memories that you remember & the ones you’ve blocked from your mind.
It’s grieving the Daddy-Daughter dances that never happened. (I fucking hate those btw)
It’s grieving when you need support, you don’t have a built-in support system in your life… because it’s not just the alcoholic, but the entire family system around the alcoholic that’s living in survival mode & incapable of giving you the support you need in your struggles.
It’s grieving when something good happens, but there’s no one present to share it with.
It’s grieving the internalized shame & how it manifests in your own behaviors.
It’s grieving that you haven’t fully experienced life & love because of the fortress you’ve built around yourself that was necessary for protection.
It’s grieving the missed conversations, holidays & celebrations.
It’s grieving so many things…

There have been many times I felt like it would be a relief for my dad to die. Not that I actually want him to die, but I just wanted there to be an end date to the perpetual grieving… to not know if & when it’ll ever end feels unbearable at times. So, having one big final grieving session of his death feels like the better option in those unbearable moments… who knows if that will be true or not. I don’t know since my dad is still alive.

Then there’s shame, followed by grief, for having those thoughts at all. It’s never ending.

I have forgiven my father, as through my own sobriety & healing, I understand this was not his choice. There’s still anger for what I was cheated out of, but it’s not towards him. For him I feel nothing but empathy & compassion… to have lived a life disconnected from himself, God, and his family must be unbearable pain to live with… and the shame that he carries from it all is something I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy…

To love an alcoholic is to spend a lifetime grieving, but it’s also a testament to what love is - unconditional.

Yes, there have been times where I’ve had to establish extreme boundaries with him. I’ve had to cut off contact with him completely because his actions at the time were extremely harmful to me, but I still loved him during those times, as love doesn’t mean he gets unfiltered access to me… he wasn’t safe, so I loved myself enough to protect myself in those years. There have been times I haven’t liked the man very much, and it even bordered on hate. But, like is a feeling, and love is a choice. My soul chose this man to be my father during this lifetime… Why? I don’t know, but it did… So, I choose to love him.

I also choose to find the good…

Because of my father I am strong-willed.
Because of him, I learned to meet my own needs, instead of expecting others to do so.
Because of him, I decided I wanted to be a sober parent to my daughter.
Because of him, I realized what I was missing from my life when I used to drink.
Because of him, I realized I could love someone without liking them or their behaviors.
Because of him, I’ve experienced extreme heartbreak, which on the surface sounds bad, but it’s just proof that I have the ability to experience tremendous depths of emotion… which is pretty rad.

We don’t get a choice of how the characters in our stories behave, but we have the choice of the story we choose to write. It can be a story of victimhood & bitterness, or it can be a story of love conquering all… I choose the latter.

This isn’t my whole story, it’s only one aspect of my story, but finally being honest with myself about how it shaped the storyline of my life was liberating… Only in real, radical honesty can we write a story worth telling. So, that’s what I’m choosing to do.

If you love an alcoholic, I see you & I feel your grief… and I honor you for your ability to love. It’s your superpower. I hope you embrace it fully, while loving yourself enough to maintain boundaries like a motherfucker.

XO,

Stacie